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Terrifying Ride to Safety for Survivors in Taiwan

Taiwanese rescuers held children before crossing a river to evacuate the flooded village of Liugui on Thursday.Credit
Associated Press

SINFA, Taiwan — The road that wends through the storm-battered mountains of Kaohsiung County comes to an end at a breathtaking abyss.

On the south side of the road, Provincial Highway 27, there are hot meals, the succor of Buddhist monks and, after some careful driving across soggy roads, access to the rest of Taiwan.

For those stuck on the north side, because a bridge no longer exists, there is a 200-foot drop into a muddy torrent spawned by Typhoon Morakot.

Despite her fear of heights, Wang Ma-lee, a 52-year-old goat farmer, decided that she could no longer stay on the north side. She stepped into a rock-climbing harness, allowed a team of rescue workers to clip her to an overhead zip-line cable and then stepped into the chasm as a row of young soldiers yanked her across the river.

“That was terrifying, but I’m lucky to be alive,” she said upon arriving on the other side.

Since Typhoon Morakot soaked Taiwan last weekend, killing at least 116 people, Ms. Wang and her husband have been among tens of thousands of people stranded in a necklace of picturesque hamlets extending along the Lao Nong River. The couple said they were among six people to survive in their corner of Sinfa when a wall of mud and water swept away 20 neighbors early Sunday.

Thousands of people have been airlifted out by military helicopters in recent days, but many others are awaiting help, especially in the northern wilds of the county, where hundreds are missing and presumed dead. The government, facing critics who say its efforts have been sluggish, sent 4,000 more soldiers to stricken areas on Thursday, bringing the total to 38,000. The rescue and relief efforts have also involved 380 helicopters and a thick stream of volunteers who have been heading north, their luxury sport utility vehicles packed with food and bottled water.

Also on the move are a handful of desperate people trying to enter the disaster zone in their search for loved ones. “Everyone says I’m crazy, but I can’t leave my mother alone out there,” said Chen Rong-chun, who was making a third attempt on Thursday to reach Baolai, a resort town famous for its hot springs that is inaccessible by road.

As five days and 80 inches of rain finally gave way to sunshine on Thursday morning, Mr. Chen led a group of other desperate people along caved-in roads and through fields of papaya and jackfruit buzzing with the hiss of cicadas. They hitched brief rides on relief trucks and, when the road disappeared, hiked through a cemetery, reverentially clasping hands in front of tombs before moving on.

Trailing behind the group was Lin Song-yuan, who was returning to Sinfa to see how his home and orchards had fared in the storm while he had been selling bananas on another part of the island. Mr. Lin, 61, was fortunate. His living room was caked with a few inches of mud, and mold was spreading up the walls, but at least the house was standing.

A few dozen paces up the road, at the foot of Sinfa Mountain, a stunning expanse of silt and rock had buried what were once lushly planted fields of squash, corn and papaya trees. Somewhere beneath the rubble was Lou Pei-yun, a 35-year-old farmer who was taken away by a landslide on Sunday. A gushing river sliced through what was once her bedroom. Her father-in-law, Pan Guo-hua, said the river did not exist until last weekend.

“I’m going out of my mind,” he said, standing amid a tangle of crushed appliances, shredded clothing and several feet of mud and rock. “We don’t know where her body is. She could be right here. Or over there.”

The mayor of Sinfa, Lin Wen-tian, said that at least 38 of the village’s 2,000 residents had died but that only two bodies had been recovered. “Everything is still wet, so there’s not much we can do,” he said, as he smoked and paced around the grounds of the local elementary school, which has been turned into a dormitory for some of the 80 families whose homes were destroyed.

The mayor had other worries. There was no electricity and, without a passable road, no way fuel trucks could deliver oil and gas. Then there was the mountain that loomed behind him, its face freshly scored by rock slides. “Our advice is that people should leave here,” he said as it began to rain again. Some villagers heeded his advice, but many others were busy scooping out mud from shops and homes as water rushed along the main street.

At the north end of town, specially trained police officers were gingerly guiding people across the spectacular gap in Highway 27. Since Wednesday, as many as 100 stranded villagers had been pulled along the jury-rigged zip-line cable, but the pace was painstakingly slow. If rescuers needed a reminder of the urgency, they could look up to see a large hand-painted sign on the opposite side that read: “32 People Dead. S O S.”

By late afternoon, only three dozen people were waiting to cross, including Ms. Wang, the goat farmer, and her husband, Lee Siu-yao. When they were reunited on the other side, Mr. Lee talked about the harrowing five days they spent trying to get help. He also expressed anger at the resort developers who had defaced the mountains above his home in recent years. “If you cut down the forest, the earth is going to slide down,” he said.

Despite the bitterness, he mostly expressed appreciation, and wonder, that he had survived the worst typhoon to hit Taiwan in 50 years. He described how he and his wife had escaped a surging mud flow by scurrying up the mountain in the darkness. With daylight, Mr. Lee saw the devastation below and realized what had befallen his neighbors.

“It’s a miracle we’re standing before you,” he said.

Kuanying Yu contributed research.

A version of this article appears in print on , on page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: A Terrifying Ride to Safety For Survivors in Taiwan. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe